Magna Pars L'Hotel à Parfum

You’ve probably heard of Philip K Dick’s novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? But what about this one: do single men dream of seductive furniture? Because I have – it happened a few weeks before I first went to Milan. I was in London and it was the dead of night, but my mind had me up and striding down a long and lavish arcade. Suddenly I stopped, halted in my tracks by the work of a master. On the other side of the glass I saw milk-white marble and finely formed curves. But it wasn’t Michelangelo's David or Pieta, it was Achille Castiglioni’s 1962 Arco lamp. ‘An absolute classic’, I thought to myself, before waking up and wondering what on earth was going on.

Lying there, I reasoned that this wasn't that odd. I’d recently returned from a spin around Berlin, so perhaps my head was still on a Postmodern merry-go-round. Whatever the cause, the fact that this Milanese beauty slipped into my dreams told me that I needed to go there at once. When you start dreaming about 1960s furniture, it’s time to bypass Italy’s more sentimental cities.

And so, a few weeks later, I find myself on a plane, musing that somewhere in Venice, a full-throated gondolieri has been spared a journey with an apathetic audience of one. After touching down, I engage the services of the second most romantic form of transport, the Metro, riding it to the refreshingly tourist-light district of Tortona. The kernel of Milan’s creative industries, this quarter is the haunt of the city’s movers and shapers, full of ateliers and design studios. Ducking down a quiet side street, I spot a building clad in gleaming plate glass, laying bare a network of corridors and staircases within. I hadn’t known what my hotel, Magna Pars L'Hotel à Parfum, actually looked like from the outside, but now I advance with George Clooney’s dulcet tones sounding in my head – ‘what else?’

Once inside, I’m struck by the unexpectedly yacht-like looks of the lobby: there’s wooden decking, white steel and an awning that cascades across the room like a billowing sail. I’m still admiring the space and light of it all when I’m promptly unburdened of my bag, and, before I know it, being borne away to a room far larger than the one I booked. ‘Does your hotel have a smirking area?’, I nearly ask. I think I may need to use it.

Just about retaining composure, I’m ushered into a split-level suite with a soaring ceiling and industrial windows that are flush with the treetops in the garden. It’s very sleek and restrained, the furnishings mostly white-on-white, which only makes the wash of red and gold leaves outside burn brighter in the sun. There’s a noble oak floor, more leather sofas than I could possibly make use of and a coffee table as wide as the living room of my London flat.

Loafing about with a Nespresso (hello, George), I’m again struck by something I noticed when I first walked in: the room smells fantastic. This makes sense once you know that Magna Pars Suites used to be a perfume factory belonging to the Martone family, who built the hotel when they outgrew the site. Commissioning some of the best ‘noses’ in the business, they created a signature fragrance for every room, putting scent at the hotel’s heart.

In my room, the woody, spiced air is all but telling me to sink into a sun-bathed sofa and turn lotus eater for the rest of the day. But I’m short of time and the city’s art and architecture has a siren call of its own, so I wrestle myself away. Heading in the direction of the Fondazione Prada, I soon find myself walking down streets that read like an encyclopedia of architectural styles: there are streamline moderne shops, brutalist blocks, and I even pass a multistory car park that’s beautiful. Just when I’m convinced I’m lost (I’m standing on a bridge over a weed-choked goods yard – not very Prada), I spot a white tower jutting high over the surrounding rooftops. What else?

Designed by architectural provocateur Rem Koolhaas, this Prada-funded art centre is built on the site of a former gin distillery, with works housed inside refurbished warehouses, brewing silos and cutting-edge new builds. In a moment of unapologetic flamboyance, the building at the centre of it all is painted from top to tail in 24-karat gold leaf. There’s a dreamlike quality to the place: everything’s so immaculate that you feel like you’re standing in the architect’s model, not the real thing. By luck, I also arrive during the golden hour, and before long the glassy flank of one building is reflecting the golden centerpiece, now washed smoky pink in the sunset. This might be even more beautiful than my ethereal Arco.

A few hours later, my serenity stutters when I realise I’m going to be late for my date with Da Noi – not a person, the hotel’s restaurant. Having rushed back through the dusky streets (and survived the day on a diet of olives and Peroni), I arrive breathless, ravenous and certain that I’ll have lost my table. To my sincere relief, the maître d' shrugs off my lateness with effortless charm, and though it’s a Saturday night, practically sweeps me into a table that’s been kept free.

The highlight of the meal is the tortellini, stuffed with beef so perfectly cooked it comes apart at the lightest touch. I don’t pretend to know much about Italian wine so I let the waiter do the honours, and he comes back with just the sort of rich, broody bottle I didn’t know I wanted. For those who don’t need the assistance of a seer, there’s a whole walk-in wine cellar to choose from.

Rekindled by this Bacchanalian feast, I slip not into bed but into the bar, which is cut from impressive blocks of veined onyx. One thing about travelling solo is that you get plenty opportunity to take stock of your fellow guests, and I can’t help but notice that quite a few look very Milanese in their sharp tailoring and jet-black dresses. Before long, a group have invited me over (they are indeed locals – always a good sign), and not that long after that, I’m trying to explain that I was enticed into the city by a slender-necked lamp.

I’d planned to wake early the next morning so I could beat the crowds to the dizzyingly ornate Duomo, but I’m waylaid by the softness of the bed and the liberal measures in last night’s drinks. After a tropical soaking, I finally make it down to breakfast. I’m just administering a double espresso – the real deal, thick as crude oil and with a caffeine jolt like a pistol shot – when champagne appears. There’s a flashed smile. ‘Will sir…?’ I suppose he will. It may have taken 600 years to build, but Milan’s cathedral – and my repentance – will have to wait. Forgive us our decadent breakfasts (and the hotels that tempt us into them). Besides, why not linger a while? I came for the modern, not the old. And I got just what I needed, too: I haven’t dreamt of designer furniture since. Next time I do, I know just where I’ll go.